Typically there is a desire to reduce size of electronic units, while lowering associated assembly costs and improving their overall ruggedness. In particular, many electronic units, such as; hand held mobile terminals, communication units, and the like have various assembly costs and are generally susceptible to damage during employment in harsh environments. Such units are generally assembled by enclosing internal electrical components, such as a central processing unit (CPU) board, display, keyboard, and internal wiring, within a housing made of plastic or another structural material. The enclosure normally serves as a protective measure and is typically formed in two parts; an upper housing and a lower housing, with the electronic components being mounted to one or both sides of the housing.
Many such electronic units employ various interface components including; switches, plugs, socket arrangements and communication ports, which are subsequently employed for any suitable communication interface of communication standards and/or protocols, e.g. parallel, SCSI, Firewire (IEEE 1934), Ethernet and the like. Typically, such dedicated communication ports increase assembly and fabrication costs of the electronic unit. Moreover, openings that are associated with such interface components generally cause a contamination of the electronic unit, e.g. moisture and other fine particles can enter the unit and affect its performance during lifetime of the unit. The reliability of the dedicated communication ports can also be affected over time.
Some designers have resorted to various gasket arrangements for mitigating such contamination. Nonetheless, such gasket arrangements require regular inspection and maintenance to assure proper functionality in harsh environments, e.g. high humidity and temperature, presence of corrosive agents and the like.
In addition, there are applications for such units, wherein their associated communication ports and electronic components can be exposed to high shock conditions and accelerations, e.g. of the order of 1000 to 4000 g's of acceleration during deployment. To this extent, the need has also increased to ensure that the electrical interconnections of the communication ports through which various components interface, are each adequately protected from vibration and shock damage that can result from high levels of acceleration. Such mechanical shocks typically affect the reliability of the connection for the communication points. Thus, an adequate protection is required for various electrical/mechanical contacts of the communication ports from vibration and shock damage that can result from high levels of acceleration.
At the same time, such electronic units typically include various replaceable battery arrangements having electrical/mechanical contacts that are subject to wear and tear during a lifetime of the electronic unit. For example, such battery arrangements can include rechargeable battery packs comprised of battery cells. Generally, when one battery unit or a battery cell of such a pack is depleted, it can be removed from the host unit and replaced with another fully charged battery cell, with the depleted battery unit or cell being recharged or disposed of. Such a battery pack arrangement can typically include a sealed enclosure, which protects the rechargeable batteries cells. Contacts on the exterior surface of the battery pack enclosure mate with contacts on the electronic device or interior terminal contact, upon the battery pack being mounted on the electronic device. Such battery packs may be arranged in two or three rows, depending on the capacity required of the whole battery pack, capacity and size of each battery, and similar factors. Charging or discharging the batteries of these devices requires use of various conducting parts for electrical connection between the batteries and between package terminals and the batteries. Such conducting members are typically subject to wear and tear, which in a life time of the electronic unit can affect its performance.
Therefore, there is a need to overcome the aforementioned deficiencies associated with conventional devices.